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James Robert Smith

Bob Smith


Last Updated: 11/17/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 52
Sign: Cancer

City: MATTHEWS
State: NORTH CAROLINA
Country: US
Signup Date: 5/14/2006

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Monday, November 23, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
 

GOD

copyright 2009 by James Robert Smith


God

 

stubbed out another

 

cigarette.


   

He looked

 

down

 

at us.

   


He was

 

nauseous. So

 

He got

 

up and

 

went to the

 

head but

only

 

took a whiz.

   


Then He pulled

 

on his coat.

 

Took a turn

 

around the block.

   


When He

 

got back we

 

were still

 

here.


   

Damn!




 
10:56 AM 
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Thursday, November 19, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
I've never wondered about the so-called "meaning of life". There isn't one. To assume that there is a meaning to life is to exhibit a selfishness that's hard to describe. I have a difficult time understanding such a degree of self-centered pathology.

About ten years ago I began to read the works of Charles Bukowski. His poetry and his fiction and his essays captured me in a way that the words of few others have been able to do. In some ways, it was his style of writing that grabbed me and held my attention. There is something so deceptively simple about it that it throws you off. Because it isn't simple--it only seems that way. His stories and novels display a level of intelligence and insight that I've yet to encounter in just such a way anywhere else.

Bukowski wrote about real people. The rich and the famous rarely enter into his world. This is good, because they rarely enter into my immediate world, either. Bukowski's world is an insular one, but he wrote with a strange kind of compassion for other people, despite the outward impression of what most readers see as Bukowski's antipathy toward his fellow man.

The older I get the more despairing I become of the fate of our species. We seem bound and determined to head straight down the hole of Oblivion into extinction. And, as we all know, that's a one-way trip. The greatest bummer of it all is that we will take so many other fellow creatures down into that sucking hole with us.

Alas.

Bukowski seems to have come to his same conclusion. He understood Human Nature for what it was, but he also understood that the greater force of Nature was going to have the last say-so. The Big Storm is going to well up over the walls we've built around us and overwhelm everyone and the lightning will strike. We're going down for the count. It's just a matter of when, not if.

Yes, the older I get the more my admiration grows for old Bukowski. He wasn't misanthropic. He just knew the real deal. Bukowski's gone, now. But he went down laughing. I admire that. You have to.



10:51 AM 
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009 

Category: Pets and Animals
If there's a mammal that I find more intimidating than a leopard seal, I have yet to see it. No, they're not as large as killer whales. And they can't chase you down on land like a brown bear or a Siberian tiger. But Jove, those predators are just frightening to look upon.

But even these animals--top predators--can show compassion.


Non-human Animals think and feel.



If you're worried about the impact that over six billion consuming 200-lb. primates are having on the planet, you have a right to be. If you want to witness our dwindling array of ecosystems, you'd best hurry. Soon, many of them will be gone. And not within hundreds of years or even in decades, but within years or months. Certainly many unique ecological niches will be swallowed into oblivion and extinction within our brief lifetimes. If you want to see some of them, then I'd suggest that you get on with it.

4:29 PM 
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Sunday, November 15, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
I was invited to submit a short story to another anthology. So I've been working on a short story for that. I needed a break from my novel work, so this was a good time to set aside the longer form to try my hand at writing a short story.

When I was a kid, all I really wanted to do was write short stories. Most of my favorite authors had been exceptional short story writers: Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Robert E. Howard, Stephen King, Robert Aikman, Fritz Leiber...you get the picture.

So for a few years I labored away, writing short stories every time an idea would hit me or a phrase would occur to me or something as slight as the color of the sky would inspire me. At such times the thing to do was--to my way of thinking--write a short story. Most of these were pretty horrible. Not good-horrible. Awful-horrible. As in I hope I've burnt them all by now.

At a certain point, though, after I'd gotten to a point where I could write a creditable short story and had managed to sell a few dozen, I stopped. I'd decided to become a novelist and had turned my hand to writing longer works of fiction--things with themes that couldn't be handled in just a few thousand (or a few hundred) words. Since that time I've only rarely gone back to writing short fiction. For one reason I lost touch with the anthology market and I didn't know where to sell stories (the magazines are mostly dead these days). So there was that reason. But mainly I was so busy writing novels that I just couldn't bother to write short stories at all.

But now I've found that they give me a reason to relax when I'm struggling on completing a novel. They help even more than my efforts in writing for this blog. (Admittedly, the main reason I keep a blog is to help with my fiction efforts. They keep the old joints greased, so to speak.)

So that's what I'll be doing most of the day on Sunday: working on a short story to submit for the approval of the editor of an anthology.



8:44 AM 
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Friday, November 13, 2009 

Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
When I was in my late teens, just after high school, I found myself living in the small town where I'd been born, but from which I'd not been (except for brief visits) since the age of seven. The place is Brunswick, Georgia and it's a pretty horrible spot. I suppose some people must like it there, for it has a permanent population of several thousand. And I reckon other folk just stay out of some kind of ignorant loyalty for a familiar place. At the age of seventeen I found myself there, and I loathed it. Of course I could have just walked away from it, but I didn't. I didn't have the necessary forethought to hit the road. Alas.

In those days  of loneliness and pining for the mountains of southern Appalachia where I'd spent the previous four years, I discovered that I could drown my loneliness and misery in feature films. Keep in mind that this was in the days before affordable VCR machines, and the DVD format was decades away. So if you wanted to see a movie you had to keep an eye on the TV Guide and wait for something good to see and set your schedule, or else you went to the cinema.

Me, I went to the movies. A lot. In those days Brunswick had a grand total of five screens, as I recall. And that's counting the Sunset Drive-In, which was, the last time I checked, an overgrown lot of weeds and trees. But, with no friends and a lot of pure fucking depression to drown, I would hit the movies several times per week. I'd go to every theater in town until I'd seen everything. For me, misery was a popular film that would lock in a screen for weeks at a time, thus depriving me of seeing something new.

It was during this time that I found that I loved the small movies. I enjoyed films made on low budgets; or movies that the masses seemed to dislike. I found that I really liked to watch the kind of movie that most people avoided. During these days I developed an admiration for actors and directors and writers who were not as well known, or who were ignored or overlooked. I liked guys like Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton. I'd rather watch a film that never made a dime than a blockbuster that made jillionaires out of its producers.

The underdogs were the ones for me.

One movie that made an absolutely huge impression on me was STRAIGHT TIME. It was a Dustin Hoffman movie, which should have meant that it would have made a lot of money. But it came and it went and no one seemed to even notice that it had ever existed. I did. It was one of the four films I saw the week it appeared. The week after it hit Brunswick it was gone. They'd replaced it with something else--something I'm sure I saw, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

But STRAIGHT TIME I could tell you about. I liked everything about it. Even as I watched it I felt my mind tilting a bit. Dustin Hoffman as a career criminal. And not even a mobster. No, here was this great actor portraying a nothing hood who robbed at gunpoint, who broke and entered, who smashed and grabbed, who snatched purses. He was a loser with a capital L. It was amazing. I believed for two hours that Dustin Hoffman was a loser criminal searching for his big score.

And the cast who rode along during the movie: a cast made in 70s-movie Heaven. Harry Dean Stanton, yes. Gary Busey. Kathy Bates. And I'll never, ever forget Theresa Russell as she made her first appearance in the film. I'd never seen a more shapely ass, and I'll never forget that scene.

But the greatest performance in the film was by M. Emmett Walsh. For some reason, Emmett Walsh has a tremendous talent for portraying bastards. And I'm not talking about just minor-league assholes, but the full on twelve-gauge sort. And of all of the assholes he has ever played he portrayed the slimiest of all as Earl Frank, Max Dembo's (Hoffman's) parole officer. I'd never met a parole officer (still haven't), but after seeing Walsh's portrayal of Frank, I wanted to see them all burn in Hell. At the earliest opportunity.

So I dedicate this bit of my blog to M. Emmett Walsh, one of the most unforgettable actors of my youth in the single best role I've ever seen out of him.


M. Emmett Walsh as Earl Frank. Slime never looked so nasty.




An ass-kicking and humiliation has NEVER been more deserved.

8:29 AM 
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Thursday, November 12, 2009 

Category: Travel and Places
Just a couple of videos and a few more photographs (courtesy of Andy Kunkle). But don't just look at my blog--go to visit the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area. It's truly one of the most beautiful spots in the eastern USA.

Taken just south of Table Rock Mountain. That's The Chimneys in the background.

Me, taking in the views.

I think my insistence on climbing up rocks was making Andy nervous.


..


The Amazing Views at The Chimneys, just south of Table Rock Mountain.




..


The View from the South Rim of The Amphitheater.

10:31 AM 
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 

Category: Travel and Places
After leaving the Mountains to Sea Trail we started down a relatively well-worn path made for us by rock climbers. It passes through the part of the forest that was burned down in the drought-induced fire of 2000. This fire scoured off all of the trees on this side of the gorge. Eight years later, during the next severe drought, another fire would denude to gorge of its trees on the opposite side of the gorge. (I wrote about that on this blog in my recounting of our hike on the Rock Jock Trail.)

The trees are beginning to recover, but it's a struggle to hike through a forest of eight-year-old trees. They are just the right height to impede walking and the needles of Table Mountain pines are quite sharp and painful.

After dropping down from the heights of the ridge, we soon found ourselves hiking on the northern arm of The Amphitheater. It was as fantastic as Andy had promised. You find yourself atop a looming cliff face that falls down into a side canyon that trickles with water. Down in those spaces I could spot a few good campsites for another day--shelves of earth and rock with pools of water waiting to quench a camper's thirst or for boiling water for a hot meal. I aim to return with my loaded backpack.


Andy and Boone as we hiked out on the northern arm of The Amphitheater.

I can't think of a better place to stop and eat lunch. The weather was cooperative. The skies were clear with cobalt skies. It was unseasonably warm--the temperatures were in the  70s and I wished all along the hike that I'd worn shorts.

One of the few self-portraits I took on this hike. Andy had brought his camera and was good enough to take a number of photos of me and the mountains.

Looking from the south rim of The Amphitheater toward the north rim. The top of the cliff is where Andy was eating his lunch in that earlier photo.

Looking down into the scarred earth.

The scenery seemed to change with the light. As the sun rose in the sky, shadows altered the landscape.

Every step was an experience.

At one point on the trail, we were able to look down on our lunch spot.

As the day was winding down, we had to move to get out of the gorge. The trail at some points is...well...an experience in itself. Here were negotiate a fat man's squeeze along the highest of the ridge line.


1:08 PM 
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 

Category: Travel and Places
Andy Kunkle had promised to guide me to a place in Linville Gorge that rivaled some of the West's scenery. It's a placed called The Amphitheater. Known mainly to rock climbers, it's just not common knowledge among the hiking and backpacking community. It consists of a number of huge sheer walls that plunge down pretty much to the Linville River from the heights just below the ridge line not far south of Table Rock and The Chimneys.

This photo journal today illustrates the first part of our hike.

We had parked on Ginger Cake Road at a spot that's pretty popular for casual hikers. For the reason that it's the shortest and easiest route to hike down to the Linville River. We had a hard time finding a parking spot, and I ended up parking on the shoulder of the road. This was taken not far into the woods from the road.

Boone, as usual, was raring to go. He kept running ahead of us and then doubling back to see what was keeping his human companions. Forget about seeing wildlife when you have a dog along.

Classic southern hiking. Narrow trails and rhododendron.

Boone can scrambled up rocky walls, too!

Another great view into the gorge. Hawksbill Mountain was to the north of us and Table Rock was to the south, in the direction we were headed.

As we get alongside Table Rock, we are afforded good views of The Chimneys.

Andy and Boone pose at the base of Table Rock's western walls.

Looking back at Table Rock after we'd paused at the parking area just below it.

This was on the first of the three Chimneys. Go ahead. Try to walk across that pine tree. I dare ya. I double-dog dare ya.

Andy and Boone precede me down the trail.

Yep. That's the trail. A tight squeeze.

See how narrow?
Looking north into the Gorge.

Not sure what's being protected. Could be vegetation. Might be peregrine nesting area. This was on the second of The Chimney formations.

I had clambered up one of The Chimneys, looking for a scrambling route to the top. But it was just a tad too technical for me. But I got a good photo from about 3/4 of the way to the summit looking down at Andy and Boone.

Click on this photo. It's a good one!

The scenery just kept getting more rugged and more spectacular.

The improved cairn that rock climbers have left on the Mountains to Sea Trail to alert their fellows of the way down to The Amphitheater.

Tomorrow: the real deal.
4:23 PM 
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Sunday, November 08, 2009 

Category: Travel and Places
On the way back to the travel trailer we stopped at a nice roadside park on the Ohio River. The park was located on the Ohio side, so all of the background is West Virginia territory.

The weather was pretty much perfect. Mid-70s with clear skies, the remnants of some great Fall color, and lots of fresh air and quiet. I enjoyed me some Ohio River scenery and peace.





11:02 AM 
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Saturday, November 07, 2009 

Category: Pets and Animals
Little Cairo is really settling in. I don't know when I've enjoyed the company of a kitten more. She has more personality and energy than anything I've seen! She's just a great kitten!

Today while I was working on a novel and sending some material to my agent, she came into my office and climbed up my leg and into my lap and then onto my computer desk. She promptly curled up next to my computer and went directly to sleep.

"Hey! What dat bright light? You waked me up!"

"Dat jus' a warnin'. Don't make me get up again. I weigh a whole pound, now."

10:13 PM 
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